Texas Gov. Rick Perry released a statement Wednesday afternoon blasting President Barack Obama for the attacks on the American mission in Benghazi and the American embassy in Cairo and went a step further than Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, blaming the president for the deaths of the four Americans who were killed in the attack in Benghazi.

Here’s the statement in its entirety:

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today released the following statement regarding the Benghazi attack that killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans:

“Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans are now dead in the chaos of a destabilized Middle East. President Obama said he “rejects” these brutal acts, and condemns them in “the strongest terms” – yet still acknowledges our attackers’ supposed justification. This kind of language broadcasts an impotent foreign policy that fostered this crisis in the first place.

“Muammar Qadaffi was an evil oppressor who murdered innocent Americans. But in the naïve belief that America could “lead from behind” in the operation to remove him, this President allowed Libyan rockets and artillery to be scattered to the terrorist winds and had no plan to secure the country. Now we have these brazen attacks on our mission in Benghazi, and the violent death of our ambassador.

“Combined with President Obama’s shameful lack of leadership in Egypt that culminated in the burning of our flag in our own embassy in Cairo yesterday, it is no wonder our enemies in the region are emboldened and our allies are afraid.

“All Americans join together in mourning the tragic loss of our Foreign Service personnel in Benghazi yesterday, and extending our deepest sympathies to their families. We must now act decisively to secure our surviving people in the region, prevent further senseless bloodshed and defend American interests abroad.”

Romney’s remarks were based around a statement put out by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo hours before protesters overran one of the walls protecting it. The statement was put out in response to an anti-Islamic video supposedly posted by an American that had begun to gain traction and generate anger on the ‘Arab Street.’ And hours after protesters at the embassy in Cairo overwhelmed some of its defenses, an armed group launched a coordinated attack against the American mission in Benghazi, Libya.

The attack against the U.S. mission in Libya killed four American diplomats, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

[H]is policies are not responsible for the attacks on our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in Benghazi or the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The rush to condemn him in the wake of these attacks by Republicans from Mitt Romney to Sarah Palin, and scores of other conservative critics for policies they claim helped precipitate these attacks is as tortured in its reasoning as it is unseemly in its timing.

“They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up,” said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an “utter disaster” and a “Lehman moment” — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.

He and other members of both parties cited the Romney campaign’s recent dismissals of foreign policy’s relevance. One adviser dismissed the subject to BuzzFeed as a “shiny object,” while another told Politico that the subject was the “president’s turf,” drawing a rebuke from Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.

“I guess we see now that it is because they’re incompetent at talking effectively about foreign policy,” said the Republican. “This is just unbelievable — when they decide to play on it they completely bungle it.”

However, former Perry foreign policy adviser Victoria Coates told the Houston Chronicle’s Joe Holley that she backed Romney’s critique saying that she believed the circumstances of his attack were overwhelming his argument.

“It’s deeply unfortunate when the circumstance of the statement becomes the story,” said Coates, who is now an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and who suggested that Romney should simply have “gone earlier rather than save it for midnight” to avoid appearing to play politics on September 11. “It’s unfortunate that it’s playing out this way, and hopefully they can get back on message, because their point is sound,” she said.